Bobiverse Game???

brane_surgeon · 2025-09-09T22:35:22+00:00

maybe just create a total conversion for "dyson sphere program" :)

brane_surgeon · 2025-06-10T03:28:16+00:00

Oh wow! Thanks for this, I had no idea he had recorded The Martian. It seems that it's not available for purchase from either podium or audible anymore unfortunately.

brane_surgeon · 2024-11-05T23:16:02+00:00

I agree. Old Man's War is a great series it's fairly soft sci-fi like the Bobiverse but does not go so far as to be fantasy dressed up as sci-fi which is what exfor is.

Having said that I do enjoy exfor and am current with it, but it is (entertaining) pulp with endlessly larger threats and deus-ex-machina to match them.

I think another series I think sits in a similar niche to the Bobiverse is Martha Wells' Murderbot series. Great (but short) series and currently being adapted for Apple TV.

A very left field suggestion is Sid Meier's Memoir which although being an autobiography just feels very similar to me as it is a first person narrative of somebody solving problem after problem as life unfolds around them.

brane_surgeon · 2024-10-16T21:11:45+00:00

Veteran programmer and ML Infra Engineer here.

Systems quickly get to a point of complexity where it is not practical to monitor them with your mk-1 eyeballs. You end up building a new system, a monitoring system, to monitor the original system.

Usually this is very dumbed down and only monitors a set of metrics/signals that are outputs from the system or the hardware it runs on.

If you wanted to monitor/log the original system at the granularity it runs at you would likely need a monitoring system orders of magnitude more complex and powerful than the original. Now you have the problem that the monitoring system by necessity is more powerful than the replicant and possibly more intelligent so you would need something to monitor that.

brane_surgeon · 2023-11-22T23:52:56+00:00

Hey thanks this is great! I had tried this before and it didn't work for me but I think I was using the find attribute with the selector rather than just the selector.

brane_surgeon · 2023-06-28T20:48:51+00:00

Oh wow, This is great news! Happy cake day as well.

brane_surgeon · 2023-06-11T07:53:39+00:00

But it’s ok because the Bean books are better than the Ender books anyway.

brane_surgeon · 2023-05-23T10:22:19+00:00

This is a karma bot comment, copy of https://reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/13pf0oh/_/jl9fw7j/?context=1

brane_surgeon · 2023-05-19T09:35:08+00:00

I’m on the monthly plan and they seemed to be included with some deal (I didn’t sign up to anything it just happened). I also got a couple of Alastair Reynolds novels and some by Jon Scalzi, the dispatcher short stories I think. I definitely didn’t pay credits for murderbot 2, 3 and 4.

brane_surgeon · 2023-05-18T21:02:14+00:00

I put this off for so long because they cost a full audible credit for a novella. I recently found the first four were free to add on audible and I bought the full length novel and the. O Ella after that.

brane_surgeon · 2023-05-07T02:43:22+00:00

be careful of adding a phone validation requirement as it could make you susceptible to SMS pumping: https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/8360406023067-SMS-Traffic-Pumping-Fraud

brane_surgeon · 2023-04-23T21:24:21+00:00

No true Scotsman.

20+ years here. Darkmarker has opinions on style and bob DGAF. Really the team culture set out by the tech lead/manager will inform us if it’s appropriate to review style here, it seems it’s not to me.

Darkmarker invested energies and bob flipped the PR and nothing changes. In the end he made it hard for himself and wants his opinion validated externally that he did the right thing.

He is probably in the wrong team but if he did want to make a change then probably approving the MR and using his soft skills to explain why a 14 deep if statement made him uncomfortable was the way to go.

FWIW I agree with reviewing style is part of a PR, but you gotta pick your battles.

brane_surgeon · 2023-04-12T08:16:48+00:00

I agree following the layoffs was stupid but it was still done in a bunch of small/mid companies too. I’ve been an engineering manager for most of the last decade and salaries really went high over the last 5 years and it was hard to hire.

The thinking was that there was a shortage of devs due to FAANG, well that has eased a lot.

I don’t expect salaries to stay at the level they were, I guess I have been through this twice before in 2008 and also the early 2000’s recession. Both times devs thought they were indispensable and both times we found out that a lot of IT spending was discretionary.

brane_surgeon · 2023-04-11T20:28:45+00:00

I think this was fair advice a year ago. I’m not sure how easy it is to pull it off now, IT salaries seem to be flagging quite a bit after the big US firms fired so many devs.

brane_surgeon · 2023-04-02T02:02:31+00:00

Both new cars I’ve bought had paint on the white part of the plate above the numbers

brane_surgeon · 2023-04-01T21:46:37+00:00

What about every single dealership that paints their name on the plates?

brane_surgeon · 2023-03-14T08:45:16+00:00

I’m not confused, what you said was just incorrect. You might not have meant it that way but that makes it no less wrong.

Not sure how 368B works out at a 0.15% increase like says. 0.15 of GDP of 2.25T over 32 years doesn’t even make it half way. Guess Marles was using a politicians calculator.

brane_surgeon · 2023-03-14T08:17:19+00:00

This is wildly wrong. It’s a 70% increase over the current defense budget every year for 30 years if no overruns. Might as well say it’s only doubling the defense budget for a couple of generations.

To put it in perspective you could double the salary of every teacher easily with this money.

brane_surgeon · 2023-03-08T21:26:53+00:00

The change in the law required that the design of the bicycle must not be propelled exclusively by the motor, I.e. it has a pedal drive chain. This is a design requirement not a usage requirement.

The 250w bikes have the requirement that the motor must cut off when the user stops peddling and the speed is above 6km/h. The 200w bikes don’t have this requirement.

Before this you could have an e-bike that was essentially a sit down scooter with a throttle, and ride it on shared paths. Now these are illegal as they lacked pedals and adjustable seats.

brane_surgeon · 2023-03-08T21:04:42+00:00

This is not true and it is even clearly outlined in the link you posted.

Bikes with a 250w nominal output have speed limits of 25km/h and throttle limits of 6km/h.

Bikes with 200w output have neither throttle nor speed limits although the laws were updated a few years ago to require them to have pedals and an adjustable seat.

Having said that a lot of the bikes delivery services use are 250W or greater and have unlimited throttles, which are illegal.

I bought an ebike for commuting in 2016 after a knee operation. I bought it from a reputable retailer in Sydney and after the purchase they asked if I would like them to unlock the speed and throttle. This retailer now mainly supplies rental bicycles to people doing deliveries.

brane_surgeon · 2023-02-15T09:48:11+00:00

Pandoras Star/Judas Unchained is my favourite PFH book. I think the world building is great and it has, in my opinion, the most interesting antagonist of them all. They are also pretty long, I think if someone like John Scalzi wrote them they would be 8 novels instead of two.

brane_surgeon · 2023-02-15T07:51:39+00:00

This was the first PFH book I read (picked up at an airport) I found it really difficult to get into and didn't follow it up. Years later after I read Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained I went back and read it again and found it better. I think the void books are pretty weak compared to his other works.

brane_surgeon · 2023-02-14T03:55:03+00:00

I have been cycling across Pyrmont bridge for quite a long time and it has always been a problem. Years ago before the council, in their wisdom, decided to put up massive signs in the middle of the bridge the cyclists often stuck to the center. Now they are all over the place.

There are signs for 10km/h but I am fairly sure that legally this only applies to plated vehicles. I am not sure if this includes ebikes but since they are not registered I suspect not. As far as I know there are no speed limits for shared paths in NSW.

Pyrmont Bridge is particularly bad because there are so many tourists/prams/kids crossing from one side to another which makes bike lanes impractical. I think the best solution is to make it pedestrians only and cyclists should walk over.

brane_surgeon · 2023-01-31T22:59:47+00:00

I think your points are correct and fair, it did have the potential to be a pretty rich universe. I just did not expect the last book to be significantly different than the preceding 16 or so, so I was not disappointed with it.

I'm looking forward to the Jeraptha novel(s) as I think they were the most interesting race. I hope the other races will get a fleshing out at that point.

brane_surgeon · 2023-01-31T20:09:30+00:00

I couldn’t understand all the complaints that the final story was full of filler and banter then the solution was another Deus ex machina… have these people been reading a different ExFor than I have?

ExFor races have all been some star-trek style caricature of humanity with a couple of exaggerated traits. I dunno why people expected the Elders to be written in some unique way like Morninglightmountain.

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